The profile of a mature Christian is marked by suffering, endurance, character and hope.

Paul boldly asserts that we are justified by faith through grace - denying that we can in any manner earn our way toward salvation. He then just as boldly declares that there is a definitive set of virtues, a Christian Complex if you will, that a true disciple should purposefully cultivate and visibly demonstrate.

The tension between these two demands has always kept the church a bit off-balance, a trifle uncertain of where to focus its energies. As Duke ethicist Stanley Hauerwas has noted, "justification suggests that our lives are given to us as a gift, whereas the virtues seem to imply that the moral life should be construed as an achievement" ("On Developing Hopeful Virtues," Christian Scholar's …